As a publicist, I’ve taken my clients to thousands of photo sessions. Most of the photographers were technically proficient, and many were extremely imaginative. You’d show up and there’d be this wild set that had been constructed.  They’d take an actor who starred in a gritty realist film and make him up Ziggy Stardust-style. Often there’d be loud music, giving the session the feeling of a club.

I’ve been lucky enough to watch a lot of talented photographers at work, from Richard Avedon to David LaChapelle, but most of the photo shoots I went to were deadly dull.   After a lot of waiting around and hair and makeup, the “talent” would be positioned in front of a seamless background. The photographer would have a lot of equipment. And then: “snap&strobe-Turn your body to the left!-snap&strobe-Look at me!-snap&strobe-Move your face a little to the right!-snap&strobe-A little more to the right!-snap&strobe-Too far!-snap&strobe-Hold It!-snap&strobe-Yeah!-snap&strobe-That’s so good!-snap&strobe-I like that!-snap&strobe-Woohoo!-snap&strobe-Oh that’s good!-snap&strobe-One more!-snap&strobe-Just like that!-snap&strobe-Love it!”

It was like someone struggling to have sex with a partner who needed a lot of directions.

After what seemed like months, they were done. With the first pose.

Regardless of whether the photo sessions were generic or wildly creative, nearly all of them had one thing in common: they were planned out before you got there. You could customize it in small ways, like picking clothes from a rack, but the conceptual stage was set.

Of all the photo sessions I’ve been to over the years, two stand out. Both of them were with Duane Michals. Each time he turned up at a hotel room, accompanied only by a Nikon.

The first one was Brazilian actress Sonia Braga. He came in and started talking to Sonia. I decided to leave them alone. I went into the bedroom and made some phone calls.  After about ten minutes, I came back in. Sonia was nude by the window and he had wrapped her in the window curtain.  He was lighting her with the available sunlight and a hotel room lamp.  He positioned where he wanted her to be and took a picture. It was plain as day he was making a choice--that’s what I want, I want that image. that image… and no other.

This is a pretty interesting way to do it, I thought. Walk in the door with no expectations, no plans. Make use of whatever is there. And then stand by each of your images. Each one is a choice.

Like all exciting things, the photo shoot was over before I wanted it to be. The finished picture was extraordinary.

The next time I saw Michals was when he came to photograph Werner Herzog in his hotel room.  But we didn’t stay at Werner’s hotel for very long long. Michals told us that he had passed a parade on his way over. We left immediately. Michals and Werner raced up the street until they caught up with the parade. They talked some paraders into positing. I remember being struck by one shot where Werner stood ramrod straight as a soldier in the middle of a bunch of costumed guys from the parade. Years later, I found it in a book.

Was Michals trying to make Werner look like a character in a Werner Herzog movie?  I don’t know.

But he knew he had to grab that parade.

I only encountered Duane Michals for a few minutes, but he taught me lessons about art I will never forget.

As everyone knows, James Cameron has taken movies to a whole new level with the technology behind “Avatar.”

Still, Cameron hasn’t exactly been sitting on his hands waiting for Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to strike up their opening monologue. Having taken motion control and 3D to previously unimagined levels, he’s hard at work reinvigorating some other filmic devices.

Here are a few of the ideas he’s polishing up for the new century:

Sensurround was a rumbling theatre-shaking sound created by Universal Studios for the 1974 film “Earthquake.” Anybody who was around in those days remembers how stupendously entertaining it was. But there were some drawbacks: some customers puked into their popcorn bags and products rattled off shelves in nearby businesses. It ultimately was seen as a failure and faded into film history until recently, when Cameron took on the task of resurrecting it. “In no way did Sensurround give the feeling of being in a real earthquake,” he says. “You need to have stuff falling on people’s heads. And that’s what I’m going to do. Nothing very heavy, but even a good-sized piece of Styrofoam can really get your attention if you’re not expecting it. Combine that with 3D boulders and it’s a truly immersive experience.” He expects to have 352 CameronQuake™-ready theatres set to go by 2013.

Smell-O-Vision. Any regular movie-goer knows that smells in movie-theatres have never been limited to popcorn. But it took producer Mike Todd, Jr. to add this essential third sense to the movie experience with “Scent of Mystery” in 1960. At key moments in the narrative, various fragrances were pumped under the theatre seats. Smell-O-Vision faced competition from the copycat Aromavision and, as with Sensurround, there were numerous technical problems. People in the balconies complained that the smells reached them too late, so their whiffing wasn’t synchronized to the story-telling. Some found the smells too faint, so there was a lot of loud snorting and sniffing, which other patrons found distracting. The problem wasn’t solved until John Waters developed Odorama technology for the release of “Polyester,” starring Divine and Tab Hunter, in 1982. The genius of Odorama was its simplicity: scratch and sniff cards with colored dots. “Citizen Kane” was my favorite film until “Polyester” made it possible for me to smell Divine’s farts.

“I don’t want to criticize John Waters,” says Cameron, “but just thinking about snatch and sniff cards makes me madder than I am at Meryl Streep for thinking that voicing ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ had anything to do with motion capture.” While Pixar and Dreamworks have been testing smell-equipped 3D glasses, Cameron opted for transmitting aromas directly through the synapses into the brain. “The nasal passage might seem the obvious route,” says Cameron. “But what if somebody has a cold? My films are for all audiences, and that includes people with stuffed-up noses. CameroScent™ will give the audience such an immersive experience that they’ll be reaching for their virtual hankies. Which will seem to be there.”

Percepto was developed by famed producer/director William Castle for the film “The Tingler.” During the climax of the film, the lights would go black and the voice of Vincent Price warned the audience, “The Tingler is loose in THIS theatre! Scream! Run for Your Lives!” At this moment, the projectionist would trigger buzzers in some of the seats. “Percepto was no more than a cheesy gimmick,” says Cameron. “Trust me, when I zap the audience in the ass, it will draw them into the story, not send them running out of the theatre!”

Looking Ahead As recently reported in The New York Times, some people have complained that watching 3D movies give them headaches, nausea, blurred vision, and other symptoms of visually induced motion sickness. There are also potential problems from falling debris from CameronQuake™ as well as allergic reactions, seizures and strokes from CameroScent™, and various butt-related ailments from CameroCepto™. Cameron feels that he will have all the bugs worked out in time for the 2014 release of his next film, but just in case, he has a backup plan. “I have taken .05% of my profits on my films and given a $2 million contribution to each and every member of the House and Senate,” says Cameron. “We need to have a better health care system in America so that the viewers of my films will have access to affordable care when my movies make them sick.”

I was really enjoying the scene in “Up in the Air” where George Clooney’s character meets Vera Farmiga in a hotel bar. But as soon as she introduced herself, I went right out of the movie.

Why did she have to be called Alex?

For me, “Alex” is Hollywood screenwriter code for a post-feminist archetype: an empowered woman who can do anything a man can do—but is also smokin’ hot. The male characters sense that Alexes might turn out to be stronger than them and that cuts into their confidence and sense of entitlement. Alexes scare men, but they also give them boners. Out of this primal conflict, Academy Award nominated screenplays and books by Camille Paglia are born.

The mother of all Alexes is Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) in Adrian Lyne’s “Flashdance” (1983). Like most women I knew at the time, Alex works as a welder by day and an exotic dancer by night. But Alex doesn’t take off her clothes, because she considers stripping to be exploitative—instead, she wears skimpy outfits and drops a tub of water on herself in front of boozy schlunks in a bar. Even though Alex displays a remarkable talent for taking her bra off without removing her shirt, her dream is to be a ballet dancer. But when her boyfriend (Michael Nouri) tries to pull a few strings to get her an audition, she dumps him and sets him straight: sisters are doing it for themselves.  She also throws a brick through his front window, but I don’t remember exactly why.

ALEX LESSON #1 – Alexes don’t need men to help them reach their dreams.

The next Alex didn’t come along until 1987 but she was a doozy: Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest in “Fatal Attraction,” once again directed by Adrian Lyne. Happily married Michael Douglas has what he assumes is a momentary affair with businesswoman Close, only to find out to his chagrin that he has messed with Medea. Alex becomes a fearsome stalker, willing to do anything to possess Douglas, even if it involves heinous acts on bunnies.

ALEX LESSON #2: Alexes do need men--to do whatever they want or else!

So I couldn’t help flashing on those two Alexes when I heard that Farmiga introduce herself as Alex. For me, this was too much information before the story even got started. Oscar-nominated screenwriters Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner aren’t at fault, as the name came from Walter Kirn’s book. Still, I think the three of them should wise up and emulate a real writer like Joe Eszterhas, who co-wrote “Flashdance,” but learned his lesson and used the name Catherine Trammell for his next Alex, Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct.”

ALEX LESSON #3  Alexes need men, but only now and then. 

While Clooney and  Farmiga came on to each other with their frequent flyer cards, I tried to remember other notable screen Alexes. I could only remember the late Brittany Murphy in “8 Mile” and the great Tori Spelling in “Scary Movie 2.” Murphy’s Alex reprised the tough-talking street girl with higher aspirations portrayed by Karen Lynn Gorney in “Saturday Night Fever.” She didn’t take any crap from Eminem, that’s for sure. But Murphy wanted to be a model, which sealed the deal on the go-go dancer aspect of being an Alex.

ALEX LESSON #4: Alexes don’t let men stand in front of their career plans.

In “Scary Movie 2,” Tori Spelling’s Alex is asleep in bed when she starts to be fellated by a phantom. Instead of being frightened, her Alex takes charge right away. “Bring it on, bitch!” she shouts, as she spider-f*cks across the ceiling. “You want me!”

ALEX LESSON #5: Alexes need men—for sex!

After a few moments of thinking about this, I tried to warn Clooney about what he was getting into, but the woman ahead of me kept shushing me. I went back to watching the movie, which incidentally, I liked.

NOURI/DOUGLAS/CLOONEY/EMINEM/GHOST MESSAGE:  Ouch! 

Am I the only one who thinks that this whole Alex deal isn’t about opening up the definitions of sex roles but of trying to jam them back into the bottle?  Even in really good movies like “Up in the Air”?  Are we so married to traditional notions of men and women that if a female character is ambitious or independent or even a little cold it’s time to slap a male name on her head?  

Just asking. 

Also, anybody else have some other screen Alexes they’d like to contribute?